


My Witchy Lullaby

by hellamybellamy



Category: Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: AU, Action/Adventure, Angst, Angst and Drama, Attempted Murder, Death, Drama & Romance, F/F, F/M, Fights, Gore, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Original Character Death(s), Romance, Witchcraft, Witches, eclipse - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:10:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23976490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellamybellamy/pseuds/hellamybellamy
Summary: "The hidden can only stay hidden for so long." New Orleans is home to a coven of cruel, sadistic witches. When the coven’s overseer regent goes rogue, Lyra—a woman imprisoned for crimes she committed long ago—is sent to track him. Her pursuit leads her right to Forks, Washington where a new adventure awaits. ECLIPSE - ?
Relationships: Original Female Character/?
Kudos: 3





	My Witchy Lullaby

| My Witchy Lullaby | 

Chapter I: The Disappearance

* * *

_37 miles out from New Orleans, Louisiana_

_May 18th, 1886_

**LYRA HAD TO RUN.**

Branches, leaves, and thorn bristles flashed by her eyes as she sprinted through the trees, heading God-knows-where with safety at the forefront of her mind. She felt like she was soaring, the impact of her feet meeting the hard ground all but numbed. There was a bubble rising in her gut that begged for her to rest. A pain in her entire body that refused to be sated. But resting, _stopping_ were realities that had no place here. She was going to die if she let them catch her. They were gaining fast. She was losing ground.

There were five men from the beginning of this chase. They shouted and called after her. They taunted her. The same merciless words they used on anyone who ran. About stripping her of her speed rune, threats to cast some of their own. A foolish woman may have anticipated them to run through what they promised, but someone who grew up with those men as mentors knew they weren't keen on easy wins. Lyra, breathless and daunted, was sure she wouldn't win. She was _not_ a foolish woman. She knew how this ended. _But the farther I run the further I am from New Orleans where this chase began._ Lyra knew she was giving them what they wanted but truly, they were giving _her_ the same. They would ask for answers the minute they caught her, they would spell her into telling nothing but the truth, and she was relieved that nothing would come from her interrogation. Pitiless cries about love conquering all, and those bigger and stronger than her would call her a spineless coward.

_They'll never find you, my love._

Lyra barely pitied herself. She deserved their contempt. Their chase was the result of a crime she had no remorse in committing. It implied an even worse reckoning when they caught her. They did this every time they had someone tainted in their midst. When someone committed treason, all attachments were barred and resolved, leaving no one to pity the criminal except the devil himself and the devil was a pitiless being. Games awaited the culprits. Painful, humiliating games. Public torture that lasted all through the night with on-watchers encouraged to throw pig's blood and muck from the Bayou.

Before Lyra met Alexander, she would have been one of the on-watchers laughing at a nameless, faceless witch's degradation. Laughing as the traitor cried for mercy or faced the stake, thrown in prison to rot or banished from the coven entirely. A smile on her face as she cheered her superiors on. _Punishment to befit the crime_ , drilled into her head from birth _._ Crimes never were met with a slap on the wrists, regardless of how minuscular they were. Lyra never noticed.

She risked it all for someone she was warned from birth never to get involved with. She was now paying the price.

Lyra knew that around now was time that the coven's trackers ended their chase. They were getting too far from the coven's borders and if she escaped into a more populated, unknown zone, she would be difficult to track and able to hide in plain sight within the city limits. If. All if's. Nothing realistic—and Lyra knew she was feeding herself a false prophet's optimism. She hadn't just committed a single crime; she'd committed two. Neither would go unpunished—not if her superiors had any say in the decision. If Angelo were burned for covertly sending his daughter off to a school within the city that had shapeshifters and hunters on the premises, Lyra would be torn bit by bit until the only flawless part of her left was her locket.

The coven was not forgiving of traitors. Love was nothing if not undisciplined in the eyes of tradition enforcers. Lyra was a criminal in their eyes. When they got their hands on her, they were going to beat her silly and put her down like a hunter would a bad dog.

_They do not have hearts._

Lyra's observations tolled true when her ringing ears caught a shout, their infamous last order: _immobilize her._

Lyra, steeled as she was, wanted to weep.

The men behind her were bored rigid with the chase, no amount of heart in running as it was for Lyra. Lyra was afraid and running for her life but her inevitable captors… They were insatiable and salivating at the mouth for her blood.

An involuntary cry left her lips when one of her pursuers yelled out a curse and cast a leg-binding spell over her lower half, abruptly ending their chase.

_No…_

The ground came up to swallow Lyra's frozen form, promising her a fate that didn't equate the eternal honeymoon Alex promised.

_Alexander…_

"The fucking bitch can run," said one of her captors, right above her.

They were always right on her heels. She never had a chance in Hell of escaping their clutches.

A single tear trekked down her cheek. The monsters' brusque hands caught her arms in bruising grips that varied, hauling her up by brunt force. Her legs dragged limply behind her, petrified, numb, useless.

She wanted to run. _God_ , she wanted to run until halfway across the damned country. But this fate, a fate of dying humiliated, a fate of dying alone, was one she'd brazenly accepted the moment she let Alexander get away.

Broken smile. Tears of relief. Ears going hollow, stuffed with cotton, as the men yelled and hollered with excitement.

Lyra felt the adrenaline seep from her body like a gush of blood.

_I win._

* * *

_New Orleans, Louisiana_

_May 18th, 2006_

At dawn, after a fitful night of images she hadn't escaped since the beginning of her eternity, Lyra went to the corner of her cell and marked a new tally.

_One hundred and twenty years,_ thought Lyra, dropping the nub of chalk and toeing it until it was directly up against the crack in the corner. The cell she'd stayed in during her time spent imprisoned was small and compact, perhaps a room three or four children would have shared during a time that orphanages had very little funding. She called it a cell because of the bars on the window and door and the lack of accents and furniture. As buildings were renovated and members of the coven died and moved in or out, Lyra was moved around. She went wherever her Overseer at the time demanded her. She'd been in this tiny room in the Town Hall building for over two decades. Overseer Ryland had wanted her close, to keep an eye on her and use her as he saw fit. Lyra wasn't one to complain. She hadn't been for over a century.

Every room she went to, she restarted her tally. She wanted to know how many years would go by before she escaped the iron-grip of her coven. When she had been caught, she expected a punishment that befitted her two crimes. As she always did; as she would until they finally demolished her. She'd been alive long enough now to know why they decided this as her punishment. If Overseer Ryland were one of the seven deadly sins, Overseer Thomas was the devil. Overseer Thomas saw to it that Lyra wouldn't have it easy. Her crimes were not taken lightly—and he even told her once she was the worst criminal he'd yet witnessed and gotten the privilege of prosecuting.

_Death would be far too easy for you, Miss Lyra,_ the bastard had said after they tortured her all through the night of her capture. Over and over again until she couldn't stand and she was too weak to conjure a flower, much less put an end to her suffering. _A traitor like you does not deserve that mercy._ He spat at her feet and kicked her stomach. _Apostate._

_Apostate_ , he'd called her. Men and women all around to this day still gave her that title. Children who barely understood the word, chanting it while she was pummeled to the ground that night. Their parents had them doing it now. Loving a monster made her revoke all beliefs she once held according to them—according to their laws. Or so they believed and followed like sheep, and Lyra allowed them to. She wouldn't defend herself. Not now. Not ever.

That's what got her so far in life. Staying silent and letting anyone think what they wanted to. Getting run over instead of running herself ragged fighting a battle she wouldn't win.

Lyra missed being able to run free in the forest and use her magic without any restrictions. When they punished her, they took more than the love of her life away. They stripped her powers, her human life, and most relevant to her, her mate bond. She had never felt more broken in her life feeling the fond memories of Alex wither away. She'd crumbled to the cellar floor and begged for death. No one abided her, enjoying her whimpers and cries. She wept until she felt chilled to the bone.

The men of the New Orleans coven were cruel, facetious, and cocksure. Lyra had been naïve to ever have supported their antics or have thought they were heroes. She cursed herself every day. If she saw through them earlier, she may have been able to escape before they caught wind of her treachery. Alexander had told her time and time again she was blind-sighted. They filled her head with lies, and she was such an indoctrinated sapling that even a breath of fresh air in the lands beyond her home felt like a betrayal for a life that had always treated her kindly.

Of course, Alexander eventually chewed through her defenses. He changed the way she saw her superiors and her life. Soon she wanted a new life. A life with him. A life she never saw and lost her chance of living. Her dreams barely constituted enough as substitutes. She forgot his unearthly beauty as fast as she once memorized it.

_They gave you an eternity at the cost of him,_ Lyra reminded herself, staring unblinkingly at the chalk she'd brought down into a nub, past its due date of use. _They wanted you to live as long as him but never get the joy of living_ with _him. A punishment that befits your crime._

She stepped on the chalk with one of her old, torn slippers, applying enough pressure that it crumbled into dust. She wished she could the same to her memories.

Lyra was well past hatred. If she were anything more than a mortal shell, she would have done more than have just accepted her fate. Crying in the face of adversary wasn't something someone strong would have done, yet she did it anyway. She cried for decades, growing thinner and wearier as time passed and she wallowed—a bucket for relief, food better left for the dogs, a rickety bed that felt like bundles of sandpaper to lay awake on.

_Anyone_ would have gone insane.

_Knock, knock, knock._

Lyra savored the emptiness of her chambers for but a moment. "One knock for good faith, two knocks for warning. Three knocks for the guilty and the soulless," she murmured to herself, staring blearily at the door like it was the devil himself. Eventually she swallowed her pride and said, "Come in."

The man behind the bars was already entering by the time she gave her blessing.

"Lyra," Overseer Ryland said gruffly, frustration hidden behind a set of dark, unreadable eyes. He was only readable by his brow. It was wrinkled, hinting at the hardships he'd faced over the years whereas his crow's feet made certain everyone knew he was ashen with age. He _was_ approaching the end, but not because his body was failing him. Lyra was hidden behind walls, but even bars couldn't conceal everything.

Lyra gave Ryland a quick survey, noting that he didn't have his usual earring and his collar covered the stamp they gave to all members of the coven. She frowned. "Overseer Ryland," she greeted instead of questioning it.

She barely got to inquire about his decision to come here before he was pacing. "I don't ask you for anything. I let you sit in this room and doodle on the walls and mark your ridiculous tallies," he said in one long angry spew, his eyes gleaming with hatred. "I've moved you around, I admit, but only for your own safety. You're an immortal within a mortal's body, in case you've forgotten."

"Oh, I remember," Lyra said frowningly. He took any given opportunity to remind her just how powerless she was. He was just like Overseer Thomas in that regard.

"Yes, of course you do. Anyone would if they've lived as horribly as you have," the man muttered to himself, running nimble fingers through a head of graying auburn hair. "But things have changed. When you were a proud, law-abiding member, you were our best tracker. Correct?"

"Correct." Lyra perched herself on her bed, barely making an indent in the hard-as-bricks mattress.

"My father has gone rogue," Ryland said gravely.

Lyra froze.

"What?" she asked, not sure she heard him right.

Ryland groped at the skin on the nape of his neck, turning a shade of ireful red that Lyra knew and recognized from previous time spent together. "He's gone looking for his mate… the damned fool is breaking our laws and he _knows_ the consequences, yet he does what he wants anyway. They'll have him executed. Hung as a traitorous rat, paraded around all of New Orleans for an imbecile."

Lyra glanced at the ground before looking back up at the rattled man. She didn't want to admit it, hating herself for the easy sympathy she handed out, but she pitied him. There was hurt, _fear_ , in his eyes, the same emotions she would have felt if they had captured Alexander and put him in a cage similar to her own. Ryland didn't want his father to face the same fate as she had. He was probably only coming to her for aid because his council demanded it of him, and the coven always came before blood. Even if it costed.

Perhaps the council cycled through excuses and reasons for hours until they convinced their reluctant leader that he came into his position expected to be fair and impassive.

_Fair and impassive, my ass._

"You don't want them to hurt your father, do you?" Lyra innocently said. It wasn't really a question.

"No," Ryland snapped, looking like she'd slapped him. "He's a fool and he deserves their contempt, but he's old. Delirious like a dreamer. He can't be killed for not knowing any better."

_Heh. Unlike you._ Lyra heard his unspoken insult. She'd heard enough insults from him, though, that it barely stung and she easily dismissed it. She didn't react like they wanted her to anymore.

"I was never able to escape," Lyra said, blinking her doe-like eyes at him. "How was your father?"

Ryland scoffed, or perhaps it was a laugh. "He is more powerful than either of us could ever aspire for," the man admitted. "He may be old, but he's quick. Clever."

"The barriers would have triggered," said Lyra, not buying his explanation. She was suspicious. By the sounds of it… "You helped him escape, didn't you?"

A sputter. Another laugh. Ryland refused to meet her eyes, instead laser-focused on the peeling wall across from him where her long tally rested, old and unforgotten.

"That's preposterous," he said.

"You don't sound so sure," Lyra said uncertainly. She knew he was lying. He may have been able to fool the Elders and his insubordinates, but she wasn't easily disillusioned by her respect for higher-ups. In any case, she did not care for Overseer Ryland. He was hot-tempered and deceitful, a man who hid behind several masks used for every different person that had something he needed. The mask he showed Lyra was his own hateful, unlikeable face. He knew she valued honesty and thought it might get him something favorable in return, if he gave her sincerity.

Unfortunately for him, Lyra gave favors only to those she trusted. And the only person she trusted in this coven she long lost her faith in was the unfavorable son's father.

_Mikael Kalusi._

Mikael Kalusi, Overseer regent. He'd only passed down the position a few years ago because he was growing wearier and less mindful as the days passed. He lost all his love and faith for life in the early years of his marriage to Ryland's power-hungry mother. He never failed to heat the coven with his fiery temper and wicked tongue. He hated it here as much as the New Orleans coven's prisoners, if not more. He was like Lyra: soft in the heart, stubborn in the head.

Perhaps it was why they got along so well.

Mikael _loved_ to visit Lyra. He visited her frequently when he was Overseer and even more frequently when he was not. He told her he missed the chance at happiness when he chose destiny over paving his own path.

He found his mate when he was very young. He lost her around the same time his father arranged a marriage.

Lyra liked Mikael. Daresay, she loved him as much as she would have loved her own child.

She never got that opportunity but through Mikael's youth, his young adult years, and the span of decades spent as Overseer, she was there for him. She loved and coddled him like a mother would.

He was a kind man because she made him so. Ryland's mother kept him on too tight a leash to receive any treatment remotely similar.

"You knew my father better than I ever did," Ryland said, quitting his pacing. He gave her a desperate glare. "He would have gotten hurt if I did not help him. I admit that I helped his escape. I admit, too, that I don't want to track him and drag him here to be executed. I don't agree with the Council that he deserves death in response to his crimes. He's not like you. He's, he's _old_ and not right in the head."

"He's gone to seek true love," said Lyra softly, giving Ryland her most sincere look. She wasn't cruel. She wasn't one to hold a grudge, either. She'd been ridiculed and mocked for being too soft-hearted. It would be the death of her, they claimed. They said the same of Mikael. Lyra often thought about their cruel words while locked in eternal imprisonment and praying to Circe, Hecate, whatever—any mythic sorceresses she could possibly _think_ of—that no harm would come to Mikael. "Your father is a good man. You are not as horrible as your mother's molded you, it seems, to have helped your father evade capture."

"He's my _Dad,"_ Ryland burst out angrily. His eyelids flickered as he grasped for composure. He, like Lyra, seemed shocked by the outburst; he was temperamental but raw emotion like this happened once in a blue moon. He was nearing his mid-forties, had a haughty wife and two rambunctious sons, and had only just convinced the coven of his incensed, aloof public image. Every time he saw Lyra he seemed to break character. It was becoming a pattern that left a sour taste in her mouth. "I'm a man now. I have been for quite some time. But…"

"I miss my father from time to time," offered Lyra. "I miss my mother and brother, too. It's only human of you."

"We aren't human, Lyra. Well, perhaps you are now, but you've known it in the past. I cannot afford trivial humanity," Ryland said with a chuckle lost of all good humor. "I shouldn't let my emotions get the better of me. I can't. The coven will see me unfit to lead them the same as they did my father."

Lyra didn't want the Elders to win. If they convinced Ryland to seek punishment, Mikael would die. He'd die and she would never get a chance to say goodbye or tell him how much she cared for him; they wouldn't allow it. He'd die as miserable as he lived. Ryland had a soft spot for his father but the Elders _always_ found a way to take what little heart Overseers had left.

"Miss him in private. _Care_ for him in private," she urged now, conveying as much earnest pity as she could afford in her eyes. "You can be anything you want to be away from prying eyes."

Ryland seemed to consider her words before nodding. He didn't try limiting the relief that entered his gaze. "Yes… yes, you're right," he said gruffly. For a moment the two stared at each other silently, a strange tension entering the air. Ryland's face quickly turned serious, frantic posture and twiddling hands in hot pursuit. "Lyra, I didn't just come here to inform you of his disappearance or talk feelings."

"I knew as much," she said in reply, looking down. She wasn't stupid. Him coming here wasn't just to let her know her only friend had gone rogue. Ryland was not close to Lyra, as much as she was his father's greatest confidante. He didn't respect her or care about her feelings or have terrible remorse of what her betrayers did to her. Ryland came here because the coven was packed to the brim with untalented cretins and fools. She was known in her time as a prodigy; that title left her around the same time her will to be alive did.

Ryland seemed to neither notice nor care about the drop in her mood. He came until he was where she perched on her bed, crouching down to be level with her. He was close enough that she smelled the dying oils and incenses on him. Her nostrils burned but she didn't flinch.

His hand reached forward and gently gripped hers.

"I need you to track him," he said quietly.

Lyra went numb and silent all at once.

Her entire world spun on its axis, lost its control, then sailed on a crash course to the moon. His words weren't a surprise. She knew from when he mentioned her tracking abilities that it wasn't a coincidence. She was in confinement but kept around as an asset. Begrudging reproach may have kept her alive through her treachery because Overseer Thomas knew she was better left breathing than a corpse. It wasn't because he thought living an eternity without the love of her life was an intelligent decision, as cold-hearted as he was. He wasn't looking to be poetic. He was cruel and enjoyed punishing anyone that poked a toe out of line. He was a sickening creature that made her life miserable until he passed from the flu. Lyra was a pathetic traitor who failed the coven, but she was also a smart and talented girl who was learning from the best, her just-as-prodigal father. She was useful. She'd come in handy.

Quite a few decades late, her superiors had found a purpose for her.

"I'm not a witch," Lyra said desperately. Tracking down and returning a friend—her _only_ friend—just in time for his foreseeable death didn't sit well with her. She clenched her fingers around Ryland's, refusing to let him go. "This is your _father._ If I find him and bring him home, he'll die. Do you want your father to die, Ryland?"

"Of course I don't, you insolent broad," he snarled, wrenching his hand away. His temper had gotten the better of him. Lyra had been waiting for this since he first arrived. Ryland _always_ got angry and he _always_ lost it. He stumbled as he got to his feet. "They will discover my own betrayal if I don't do something to fix my mistakes quickly. You are the only one in this coven known to have tracked before. It's been decades since we last had a runaway or had to hunt for game. You were part of a time where tracking was essential to the coven's prosperity. _Don't_ try and contradict me."

"You'd rather your father die than face the same fate?" Lyra whispered disbelievingly. Ryland's scowling face turned to the side, giving a coward's profile. "You were the one who snuck him out. You aided and abetted him. Yet you want me to capture him so he'll die regardless? You… you're a coward, Ryland."

"It's _Overseer_ Rylandto _you,_ Lyra," he said, pinching at his collar and loosening it. His stamp became perfectly visible to her. "I am no coward. I'm strategizing ways so that I avoid a martyr's death. Looking at you now, I see why the difference may slip your mind."

_Insult me again, you pompous prick._

"I will _not_ track him," Lyra said through gritted teeth.

Ryland hard, bottomless eyes tore right through her, as angry as they were displeased—he obviously wanted to hurt her, the slow progress they had made be damned, but he couldn't. He needed her to fix what mistakes he made. He obviously regretted letting his father go off to find his lost love, knowing that the truth would kill him, kill his father, and kill any respect the coven had for him. No one got special treatment; even Elders were prosecuted and condemned when they failed the coven. Ryland had always worried about his legacy, much more than Mikael ever had. More than Lyra ever thought about.

"You _will_ ," Ryland said coldly.

"Mikael means more to me than a cruel tyrant like you could ever imagine, Ryland," Lyra hissed, a hand reaching behind her to claw at the back of her neck and down her back. She couldn't believe Ryland. She couldn't believe he'd ask this of her. She couldn't believe he'd done such a kind thing for his father and now he was taking it back so he'd get out the fray unscathed. He truly was a coward; Lyra had nothing to give for him. She wouldn't do it. She would _not_ let them hurt Mikael. "I won't help you—"

Ryland's face had steadily become more deadly through her profuse refusals but now it was lethal.

He lurched forward and caught Lyra by the throat, squeezing the words straight out of her mouth.

_What—_ it had been a long, long time since she felt herself feel on the cusp of death. Forever since she was afraid. Over a century from the last time someone had her at their mercy.

_Let me go, Ryland._

She felt like she was choking.

_Let me go._

_Just let me go, please. Let's talk civilly._

He wasn't letting go.

_Why aren't you listening to me?_

His eyes became darker.

_Why are you staring at me like that? Why are you increasing pressure?_

As dots of sheer black entered her vision she realized why Ryland only sucked the air out of her further. He was gripping her throat so tight she couldn't speak.

Lyra choked and went tingly, trying very hard and succeeding very little to escape and breathe.

"You'll do as I say," Ryland asserted angrily, ignoring Lyra's desperate hands as they smacked at his own, fighting to remove what had clogged her windpipe. "Even if I have to _make_ you."

Lyra fought with all her mortal might, trying in vain to escape Ryland's powerful grasp, but it was a losing battle in sight of her opponent's strength. She was human. He was a superior among not just mortals but the supernatural.

She'd always lose.

_Ryland, you bastard-_

Things went dark to the sound of her own heart pounding against her eardrums.

* * *

_A/N: Songs for the chapter:_

\- _UMAI by Shireen_

\- _The Elm by Suldusk_

\- _Anima Nera by Lacuna Coil_

_Hey y'all! Here's a new story. Thoughts? Questions? Suggestions?_

_I'm a sucker for romance so Lyra will get a lover at some point. Question is… who? For now it's undecided. That's where YOU guys come in hahahahah. I'm torn between someone from the Volturi or a Cullen (and changing up the family dynamic to suit my tastes). She meets the Cullens before the Volturi (obviously) if that influences your thoughts. If she ends up with someone from the Volturi she can be taken by them at the end of Eclipse's plot._

_I'm working on updating Stardust and The Human Condition so if you're reading either and waiting on updates, they're coming I swear. I just had this idea and—well yeah._

_This chapter is to introduce u to Lyra, her situation, and what gets her to Forks in the first place. If you're confused things will be explained as we go. :) drop a kudos and comment!!! :D_


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